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Does your company have the right culture to create compelling content? [GALLERY]

When it comes to building brand and subsequently content for a brand, having the right culture is a very important.

Earlier this year, Digi underwent a massive rebranding exercise. Along with a refreshed brand identity and a brand promise to be “the enabler of digital inspiration”, it also launched a new tagline ‘Let’s Inspire’. With this new focus in mind, creating engaging content was carved out as one of the core deliverables embedded within the strategic pillar of Digi life.

One of the key components was then to create conversations around trending topics with the help of a dedicated team.

Speaking at A+M’s one day forum Content 360, Chan May Ling, head of marketing services at Digi said creating inspiring and relevant content comes from truly understanding your brand DNA.

On top of that, to be part of quick and fast everyday conversations, a culture of empowering your front line staff is vital so they have the confidence of creating content on the go and being part of topical conversations.

Moreover, you need to have the spirit of a risk taker and be ready to deal with consequences.

“You have to be able to say let’s do it and deal with the consequences later. You don’t know the outcome but this is a risk you need to take. You must also know that some things will work and sometimes it won’t,” said Chan.

With the speed of connectivity at an all-time high, a brand can no longer afford to get things done the old way, i.e, after multiple rounds of approval before sending out a tweet or a Facebook post on topical issues.

When creating great content, team work and trust is also immensely vital.

“There is no client and agency mentality. We have a WhatsApp chatroom with both sides and we discuss ideas as friends would and try to figure out the best way to angle a topical issue and create content out of it. You need to have that transparent 2-way conversations,” Chan said.

She added when under pressure, you need to have the whole team on board and have an honest discussion on what might work and what might fail. All parties involved speaking the same lingo in such high pressure situations helps immensely.

See photos from the event here:

Moreover, today simply being “always – on” is an understatement.

Citing the example of the well-known road rage incident last year involving a young Malay lady and an elderly man, Chan said the idea to get involved in this much-heated discussion came about almost overnight. The team decided that this was a conversation the brand needed to be a part of, and executed content around it almost on the fly.

Given that the situation occurred during the fasting month, and Digi was then running its season campaign 30 hari baik (30 days of good), it decided to spin the negative situation into a positive one. Almost immediately after the incident, DiGi Telecommunications stepped up to pay for the elderly man’s car damages on a post on its Facebook page, which is titled “#30HariBaik Can you see the good?”

It also offered to pay the cost of the lady’s car damages. The post got over 7920 Facebook likes and 3,673 shares.

“We just saw the video of Kiki and uncle Sim together with you. The only difference is what we did with it. We decided to be part of the conversation and would deal with the repercussions later. Almost immediately, we asked what we could do about the situation,” said Chan.

Echoing Chan’s view was Julian Matthews, director of Trinetizen Media who said today you do not need to spend countless hours on high-tech devices and gadgets to create great content.

“Great stories are everywhere. Very often in content marketing we seem to forget the human element,” Matthews said.

Ultimately, what content does is humanise your brand, yet marketers often forget this. He advises marketers to forget about consumers and audiences being a bunch of uniques and views and start thinking of them as actual people.

“Your audience is more than just an eyeball, it is an actual person. So it is important when you share the story you have an audience in your head,” Matthews said. He also explains that having the right audience in mind is critical.

“What we really need, is to do is stop whining and get on with it. Stop blaming budgets (or the lack thereof), tools and equipment for not creating compelling content. Chances are the videos you are viewing are made by a simple smartphone. People can spot unauthentic content. They want real visceral experiences,” he said.

Ultimately, brands need to go back to basics. It needs to define its audience, find out what is its brand story and the story it is trying to tell and most importantly, put it in the context.

Fair enough, content is king, context is queen but it is up to the marketer to be the Knight on the chess board of marketing.

Metaphorically speaking, he said: “The knight has the power to jump over the kings and queens. It also has the ability to leap over the bishop (which represents faith). So marketers need to defy the kings and queens of their organisations and simply take a leap of faith to get started in content marketing.”